As world population increases and as competition for food, water, energy and other resources escalates, development pressure on large and relatively intact natural areas will increase. Maintaining healthy and resilient natural ecosystems must be seen by governments, corporate leaders and local communities to be important for both people and nature.
We will lead comprehensive, integrated campaigns, in partnership with others, to conserve more than a dozen of the world’s most important landscapes for people and nature. We will aim for big gains in conservation of critical ecosystems and working lands in partnership with local communities. We will deploy our full toolkit including conservation “deal” expertise, our work with indigenous peoples and sustainable development strategies.
Initial places: China; Mongolia; Australia; Eastern Africa; Amazon; Patagonia; and in North America: Central Appalachian Mountains, Crown of the Continent, Everglades, Central Great Plains Grasslands, Hawaiian Islands Ecosystems, Longleaf Pine Forests, Mojave Desert Ecoregion, and North American Boreal Forest. This priority provides solutions to address the global challenge of Conserving Critical Lands.
Natural solutions can help us prevent and manage impacts to human and natural communities at great risk from natural hazards (e.g., droughts, storm surge, and floods), further exacerbated by climate change.
The Nature Conservancy will focus its science, tools, and field projects initially on marine/coastal and freshwater vulnerability to harness strong experience/expertise and current opportunities.
Places associated with this priority include the Gulf of Mexico, coastal New England in the United States, the desert Southwest of the United States, the island nations of the Grenadine Bank, the Solomon Islands, and other threatened coastal and freshwater systems in Latin America, Africa and Asia. This priority provides solutions to address two global challenges: Reducing Impacts of Climate Change as well as Restoring Our Oceans.
By all measures, the number of people who support or participate in nature conservation is small. Research, however, shows that growing segments of the world’s population are concerned about issues related to their natural environment—from water quality and security to the effects of air pollution and a changing climate. There is a tremendous need and opportunity to engage and unite people around the world to become more active supporters of and advocates for the conservation of nature.
To build that constituency, we will engage broad audiences in major markets both inside and outside the U.S., expand youth education programs to cultivate the next generation of conservationists, create mechanisms to expand and promote volunteerism, establish urban conservation initiatives and launch All Hands on Earth, a marketing campaign to unite people through their shared interests in nature and create opportunities for greater involvement and action. These efforts necessitate the cultivation of an enhanced cadre of partner institutions to bring new expertise and help shoulder the responsibility of an expanded scope of work.
Initial Places: United States; Australia; China/Hong Kong; Brazil. This priority provides solutions to that relate to all four global challenges.
The Nature Conservancy’s efforts are focused on implementing large-scale examples of sustainable economic development that promote job creation and opportunity, but with substantially lower impact on forest resources.
We will draw from these models to support a broader group of countries in building national programs and to dramatically expand the political commitment, funding, and effectiveness of forest conservation globally.
Places associated with this priority include Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and China. This priority provides solutions to address the global challenge of Reducing Impacts of Climate Change.
The Nature Conservancy will implement a sustainable intensification approach, focusing on raising yields through a range of approaches, such as precision agriculture, best management practices and new technologies, while maintaining environmental quality.
The Conservancy is particularly concerned with hypoxia, where nutrient run-off is a key contributor to biodiversity loss, and to habitat conversion linked to agriculture, especially in the tropics. Conservation strategies will also consider yield and production increases, given agriculture’s central role to human well-being, especially in rural areas, and the need to double global food supply by 2100.
Key areas for this strategy are the Mississippi valley, the Great Lakes, the Chesapeake, the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, and China. This priority provides solutions to address the global challenge of Conserving Critical Lands.
Through the Great Rivers Partnership, The Nature Conservancy brings together diverse partners and builds experience and scientific knowledge through successful conservation projects that advance integrated river management strategies along some of the world’s most important rivers – from the Mississippi River to China’s Yangtze River and Colombia’s Magdalena River. This priority provides solutions to address the global challenge of Securing Fresh Water.
There are more than 370 million Indigenous and tribal peoples worldwide, most of them living in places of significant value to biodiversity as well as human and environmental security. They depend on their environments for livelihoods, culture, food, clothing, medicine and shelter. Their habitats also are key to their traditional knowledge, spiritual practices, language preservation and governance. In recent decades, inappropriate development and conservation policies have violated their economic, social and cultural rights, with decisions about lands, waters and natural resources and climate change often made without the adequate representation or participation of Indigenous peoples. They face the loss and degradation of their land and resources as a result of dispossession, and lack of access to, or control of, their natural resources.
In addition, the consequences of ecosystem changes have implications for the use, protection and management of wildlife, fisheries and forests, affecting the customary uses of culturally and economically important species and resources. To Indigenous peoples, many consider climate change a threat to their livelihoods as they are concerned their economy and resource use will be threatened, followed by an erosion of social life, traditional knowledge, cultures, health and overall well-being. Hence, to indigenous peoples climate change is not only an environmental issue but also a human rights issue.
Through this priority, the Conservancy will work with Indigenous peoples to help them achieve their conservation and development priorities and by extension, assist them in securing and advancing their human rights. The Conservancy has long worked with Indigenous and tribal peoples from the Amazon to Great Bear to Northern Australia, providing resources and tools to help them to sustainably manage their own lands and resources.
We also recognize that we must integrate this knowledge across the Conservancy, sharing best practices from within and outside of the organization, building the capacity of our programs to work with Indigenous peoples, and, ultimately, transforming our practices and programs. By doing so, we can help change the prevailing negative narrative about conservation and its benefits to Indigenous people to one in which conservation and Indigenous rights and well-being go hand-in-hand.
In addition to advancing our internal practices, conserving large Indigenous-owned and communally-managed natural resources also will require improving national and international government policies, as well as changing corporate practices and building civil society partnerships. TNC’s board-approved Conservation Initiative on Human Rights, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, The Durban Action Plan from the 5th IUCN World Parks Congress (especially outcome 5, “The Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Mobile peoples and Local Communities, Recognized and Guaranteed in Relation to Natural Resources and Biodiversity Conservation”), and other key international and regional human rights instruments and internationally accepted best practices will guide our work.
This priority provides solutions to address the global challenge of Conserving Critical Lands.
We are turning to the ocean more than ever for food, energy, jobs, new medicines and recreation. But even the sea has limits. We believe that oceans must be managed for multiple objectives and uses. By planning for conservation and development — not just protecting certain marine species or managing fishing quotas — we can conserve and restore the ocean, reduce conflicts and enable sustainable resource use and development. The Nature Conservancy is advancing integrated ocean management strategies in some of the world’s most important seascapes by bringing diverse partners together around the needs of fishing, recreation, energy and other important industries. Together, we are finding solutions for managing our busy seas while doing the least harm to marine life, protecting areas of the ocean from destruction and development, and restoring already degraded habitats. Places associated with this priority include the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic and Pacific Coasts of the United States, the Coral Triangle, Micronesia, Caribbean, the Gulf of California, and the Humboldt Current of Peru and Chile. This priority provides solutions to address the global challenge of Restoring Our Oceans.
The Oceans Solution strategy is still under development but will advance the Ocean “Challenges” and other opportunities to establish Integrated Ocean Management at a large scale. This strategy will strive to sustain biodiversity, provide the full suite of ecosystem services upon which people depend, and accommodate new ocean uses in any seascape or large ocean area.
Major focus areas will include MPAs and MSP, while recognizing that additional strategies, including sustainable finance and protection/restoration of reefs and other critical coastal ecosystems, are also needed.
The Nature Conservancy is helping cities, agriculture and corporations understand where their water comes from and why conservation of their water resources is critical to a secure future for their citizens and customers. By helping these water users understand how they can make smart investments in protecting their water supplies, the Conservancy can help ensure that freshwater systems receive adequate protection and conservation. This priority provides solutions to address the global challenge of Securing Fresh Water.
The Nature Conservancy’s approach to Smart Infrastructure and Resource Development enables companies, governments and communities to make better decisions about where development could occur—and where it shouldn’t. Through science and planning methods, like Development by Design, we can provide a holistic way for looking at what development does to natural systems and the people and precious species that depend upon them. We are demonstrating how to mitigate and offset the impacts through our on-the-ground work and by building practices and policy support for this approach. The Conservancy is shaping the footprint of development across the world. Places associated with this priority include Mongolia, Colombia, Australia and the United States. This priority provides solutions to address the global challenge of Conserving Critical Lands.
The Nature Conservancy is partnering with fishermen, industry and local communities to design, test, and implement innovative management approaches and new business models that result in viable local fisheries, stable supplies of seafood and marine conservation. Key tactics we are deploying include: working with fishing associations to ensure access rights to fishing grounds, providing incentives for the use of selective and benign fishing gear, developing low-cost assessment methods for data-poor fisheries, and modernizing the use of fisheries data and information by fishermen. Places associated with this priority include the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts of the United States, the Humboldt Current of Peru and Chile, Indonesia and the Gulf of California. This priority provides solutions to address the global challenge of Restoring Our Oceans.
The traditional conservation approaches of “buying” and “banning” cannot work at the scale necessary to matter as billions more people are added to the population with unmet human needs. The response of the conservation community has been a radical shift from protectionism to persuading—persuading people, business and governments that nature is a value proposition.
If the economic value of nature is recognized and quantified in a transparent, credible and consistent way, then public and private institutions will invest in protecting nature as a way of protecting valuable assets. We have four strategies to do this: Improving ecosystem valuation methods with the Natural Capital Project; incorporating the value of nature into business decisions with Dow and other corporate leaders; assembling data and practical evidence for the value of nature through NatureLab; and shaping public policies to spur investment in natural infrastructure through our Leaders Valuing Nature initiative with government leaders in key countries.
Initial Places: United States; Brazil; Colombia; China; Indonesia. This priority provides solutions to that relate to all global challenges.
